Mike Gordon Band
Pearl Street
Northampton, MA
3/13/2010

Neumann TLM-170 (cardoid) -> Sound Devices 722(@24/96); FLAC File processing in SoundForge Audio Studio 10.0a (volume normalization; resample to 44.1 with iZotope 64-Bit SRC set higher than "Highest Quality" setting w/anti-alias filter; 24->16 bit dither using iZotope MBIT+ with Ultra noise shaping, High dither settings); Tracked in CDWav.

Set 1:
1. Can't Stand Still
2. banter - Izzy & Griffin story
3. Spiral
4. banter - inviting out Mark Mercier
5. Columbus Stockade Blues *
6. Voices *
7. Radar Blip
8. The Beltless Buckler ->
9. I'm Deranged ->
10. Dig Further Down

Set 2:
1. What Things Seem
2. Fire From A Stick
3. Crumblin' Bones
4. banter - why this is a special gig
5. Time (The Revelator) ->
6. Hap Nappy ->
7. La La La
8. banter - traveling family introduction
9. Cities
10. banter - cheesing out
11. Be Good And You'll Be Lonely
12. Traveled Too Far
13. encore break
14. Swamp Music
15. crowd

Notes:
Set 1 starts out sounding nice and clean. But just a couple of minutes into the first song, the venue security told me that they have a no mic stands policy and that I had to remove my stand IMMEDIATELY or they were going to have security remove it for me. So I had to think quickly. The best thing I could find that I could clamp my mics to was the riser area just offcenter to the left, and a few feet back. The only problem is that this riser railing that I was going to clamp to was only about 5 feet high, so it was below head height. Which means that it's a bit muffled, and that I was going to have to protect my mics from people walking by and standing in front of them. Somehow my left mic basically escaped unscathed, but a few times you can hear the right mic getting slightly muffled when people pass in front of it, and even worse since I was guiding people out of the way with my flashlight, at least 5-6 times you can hear people say "thanks" as they walk by. Thanks to my wife Jen, Melissa P., Beth S. for helping me out with quickly moving my gear under the gun!

Luckily for the 2nd set I go the OK from Mike's crew to set up in the area between the sound and lighting board and that sounds significantly better.

The perils we face as tapers never end! Apparently another taper got turned away at the door and told me that Boston-area tapers typically boycott Pearl Street as their no-taping policy is somewhat widely known, and as an out-of-towner, I had no idea.

Note that I was the only taper at this show.

* = w/Mark Mercier on keys & vocals

Recorded, Mastered, and Tracked by Scott Bernstein

Check out my album of photos from this show here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/scotthbernstein/MikeGordonPearlStreetNorthhamptonMA20100313
